An old man sits in a shabby one-story building in a town in Iraq's "triangle of death." This will be a polling station in landmark elections planned for next month, but it hasn't yet received voter registration cards, and US commanders are still figuring out how to make such booths safe without scaring off voters.
"They have told us nothing yet about registration. I don't know when we will get the registration cards," said the man, who preferred not to have his name mentioned because of fears he might be killed by insurgents.
A handful of men on Monday stood outside what will be the polling station in Yusufiyah if Iraq's first free and multiparty elections in half a century go ahead as planned on Jan. 30.
"I will vote if I feel safe," said one, who gave his name as Mohammed and said he was a Sunni. Sunnis make up about 60 percent of the population in this town that lies just 40km south of Baghdad.
Making voters like Mohammed feel secure is crucial to the success of the elections, which many Iraqi politicians are saying should be postponed because of the unrest that continues to plague the country a year and a half after Saddam Hussein was ousted.
Coalition forces are keen that the elections should be seen as a thoroughly Iraqi process, with foreign troops keeping a discreet distance from the voting centers.
"I'd like to keep Americans away from the booths themselves," said Major Morgan Mann, the commander of the 200-strong Marine unit in Yusufiyah.
Iraqi National Guards and police will man the booths, with US forces staying at a distance of some 500m, he said, outlining a model likely to be followed across the country.
But security forces must somehow make voters feel safe without unrolling such a heavy security apparatus that might make many decide the risk was too great, added Mann, who believes violence will spike in the run-up to the vote.
Voters began registering across the country on Nov. 1 in hundreds of centres where Iraqi families come to get their monthly rations of rice, sugar, cooking oil, and tea.
But the process has been delayed in this area which was a no-go zone notorious for kidnappings and deadly attacks until a couple of months ago when US Marines set up a number of forward bases.
In Yusufiyah, Sunni Muslim thugs were abducting Shiites in the streets and killing them, locals say.
But after major US-led assaults in November to restore government control in the insurgent bastions of Fallujah and Mosul ahead of the elections, the focus turned to the "triangle of death."
Mortar and roadside bomb attacks continue in the region, and water and electricty supplies are at best erratic, but life is returning to some semblance of normality as US Marines maintain a highly visible presence.
Yusufiyah still resembles a battle zone, with Marines holed up in a heavily-fortified base in an abandoned school between the police station and the town hall, both now bombed-out ruins.
But children are back in school in this town of some 40,000 people, a health clinic has reopened and business is picking up at the souk, or market.
At the town's Shiite mosque, the imam's brother said the faithful were being told at prayers to get out and vote on Jan. 30.
"All the Shiite follow one man, Ayatollah al-Sistani," said Tahar Rihan Hamud Mahawi, clad in a checked red headscarf and a long grey robe.
He hurried inside the mosque and re-emerged with a document bearing the stamp of al-Sistani, the country's most revered Shiite leader, that reminded Shiites of their democratic duty.
A man standing in the courtyard chipped in, unprompted: "The Sunnis won't vote, they hate the Shiite."
Many Sunni leaders have been calling for a boycott of the vote.
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
RSS